7/20/2006: Python eats electric blanket
 

http://cellar.org/2006/pythonsurgery.jpg

Official caption: Karl Beznoska's 12-foot Burmese python, Houdini, is attended to on an operating table, Tuesday, July 18, 2006, in Ketchum, Idaho. It took surgery to save the python after it swallowed an entire queen-size electric blanket _ with the electrical cord and control box. 'The prognosis is great,' veterinarian Karsten Fostvedt said after Tuesday's two-hour operation.

http://cellar.org/2006/pythonxray.jpg

Facts culled from other news stories on the event:

- The blanket was in the cage for warmth; Beznoska thinks it got caught up in the snake's regular food.
- It probably took the snake 6 hours to eat the thing, and it took them 2 hours to take it out.
- The blanket was lodged in about 8 feet of the 12-foot snake; the incision to remove it was a foot and a half.
- It had been plugged in. :eek: Somehow the snake unplugged it.

Maybe Houdini just wanted to impress Houdinette with some Electric Lady Land.

Get this Motherf*&%#ing blanket out of my Motherf*&%#ing snake!

Funny++

http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.ya...__jackson2.jpg

I wonder if it didn't smell and feel (temp) like food.

And they say Python isn't bloated. Just look at it...

what a waste of surgical skills and money when 20% of americans have no medical coverage at all!

I don't think that the veterinarian took time off from treating any human patients.

Not for long. That rumbling sound you hear is the uninsured 20% of Americans moving to San Francisco. Actually, it could be more like 10% of Americans and 20% of the people who live in America.

However, there is a bright side. With the knowledge the medical community has gained from this horrible tragedy, the cost of treating humans who swallow electric blankets will surely decline - a benefit we can all enjoy.

Do you not have any pets, then? Or, if so, do you just let them die when they are unwell? Or is pet ownership a crime against humanity as well?

That X-Ray is amazing! It looks like something out of a sci fi moving. Are circular ribs? What's all that wavy stuff that looks so cool? I can't figure out of they're part of the blanket or part of the snake.

I would imagine they are the resistive heating wires inside the blanket.

That xray is, indeed, way cool! I bet those wavy lines are part of the blanket. Think about it, an electric blanket has lots of wires that deliver the heat. With it squished up inside the snake's stomach, those wires just might look like that.

And I agree, that it's fine to spend $$$ on a pet's health.

Parallel circle looking parts are ribs, not really circles, of course, more like "C"s with the open part along the belly. Wavy parts running mostly lengthwise are the heating elements woven through the fabric of the electric blanket, then wadded/twisted up into what you see. The doctor's pen is pointing to the control box for the blanket.

Anyone have a python? I'm wondering how long it took to eat this thing -- and where the owner was.

Says it probably took the python SIX hours to eat the thing.

You ladies should have replied with a loud RTFA - and I would have had to take it like a man. Mea culpa.

I did read it, I just forgot that it had that tidbit in there.

Veterinarians treat animals. Doctors treat humans. What is a veterinarian supposed to do for a human patient that a Dr cannot? Why can these people not see Drs? Why is a veterinarian's skills "wasted"?
There are PLENTY of human Doctors to treat us. I don't see a veterinarian's skills as a waste at all, especially considering the (un-medical coverage) care I give my animals. My choice. Do you not think if a veterinarian were a Dr that your 20% of people would not still be faced with the same problem?
I really don't care much for most of the whining people in America who think things are OWED to them. I'd rather keep my pets healthy as they give me joy.
hh

Off the top of my head, I think Helen and Scott Nearing were of that opinion, or close to it.

And pet ownership, as practiced by some of my neighbors, is a crime against humanity.:p

Score another one for the Cellar in the "you heard it here first" catagory...

Good Morning America (I think*) interviewed the owner and the vet this morning. But it was already old news to me.


*wasn't really paying attention

Yes, LabRat, I had the same experience. Also with the Landis / Tour de France story, and Middle East updates too. Very educational.

http://cellar.org/2006/pythonxray2.jpg

xoB sends along this larger version of the xray photo, from the wapo.

Sad thing was...snake ate the owner a week before he ate the blanket. No one cared about the owner.

Shawnee
Founder and President: Save the Blankets Foundation

:cool:

Usually there's a post about eating an animal that shouldn't be eaten. This is a thread about an animal eating something that shouldn't be eaten. Ironic.

Python
 

LOL

I didn't mean for my post to seem to serious. I've just been pondering a lot lately about our (mine included) silly priorities and expenditures.

Surgery for a pet snake who swallowed an electric blanket just seemed to an exciting and extreme case of our societal wackiness.

Depends how much the snake was worth. Priced a python lately?

My brother used to complain about how much money americans spend each year on golf, and if they would just put that money into his favorite space program, we could really make some progress. The number he quoted me was astronomical. In the multiple billions, I think.

Golf's a habit. Like heroin or cocaine.

Golf must be expensive.... a Florida vet is going to (actually has by now) operate on this Yellow Rat snake to retrieve a golf ball. :D

I wonder what the penalty is for that? One stroke or two?

I think anybody that would pay a vet to remove that golf ball is stroking something, but I don't like snakes.:footpyth:

The same could be said about candy bars or anything else... that kind of thinking makes no sense.

My brother has a Boa... has had since I was a kid... it's pushing the far side of 30. It was the most boring thing in the world to watch eat.

It would squeeze the hell out of the rat... that could be fascinating at times. But then it would take a VERY long time to make sure it was at the head of the rat, then very very slowly swallow it down. It would take it a good hour and a half to eat 1 rat.

Eventually you reach the point where you just toss in the "critter de jour", watch long enough to make sure it doesn't some how escape and Sam (now well over 11 feet long) does go for it, and then you leave it alone.

But the electric blanket in the pen was a reallllllllllly bad idea. My brother consulted a zoo and they said either radient flooring for the pen (which has gotten huge now that Sam is 11 feet in length) or specialized heat lighting with special shields to keep him warm.

One really neat thing he found in some pet supply place was a big heat rock... it was ceramic and looked just like a 1 foot by 3 foot slab of rock, but it plugged in and you could control it. He bought 3 of them and then added some cermaic fishtank rocks for texture (Sam likes textures to curl around) and Sam now has a neat heated place to keep warm.

Now having said all that, my bother has spent a small fortune on this moving boot leather... but he does love the thing.

And before anybody starts writing a nasty letter to the above comment... I love the big moving boot leather okay? I house sit for him and his wife whenever they go on vacation, just to take care of Sam.

BTW, as the final irony... as it turned out... "Sam" is a girl... we just never bothered renaming "him". LOL.

Acroyear

If it bothers you, you could move to a civilised, modern country instead.